The leader they deserve

The Onion once described American politicians as "The leaders American deserve" -- meaning most voters are about half a chromosome away from bonobos. We claim to hate politicians, but we've seen the enemy... and it is us.

We're a hodgepodge of crackpots, liars, inveterate racists and wide-eyed cultists. We disdain science and foreigners. In short, we're a nation of people like Brenda Spreitzer, 42, of Indiana. Here's what Brenda told Newsweek when asked why she wouldn't vote for Obama:

"I think Barack's viewpoints and his past is too flamboyant. It's more radical than I want to go … I'm just not comfortable," she said, adding that she is concerned about Obama's practice of generally not wearing an American flag pin. (None of the candidates wear flag pins.) She has been researching Obama on the Internet and discovered that he wants to tear out the bowling alley in the White House (Obama has kiddingly said he wants to replace it with a basketball court). "That freaked me out because no matter if he bowls or not, it's a historic thing that should never be changed."

The random blog button

When I first started using Blogger I messed around with the "next blog" button (which takes you to a random blog), but mostly found junk: unused pages, spam, totally unusable sites built by Japanese teenagers.

Today I hit the button and stumbled upon Art Inconnu, which is actually a very impressive blog about long forgotten painters. I would post a few favorites here, but they're too big for my layout.

Old Lady at the Club

My wife isn't even close to being an old lady. I don't know why she calls herself that. It might have to do with the fact that she was recently up in da club... despite being married. Now, I have no problem with it, but I guess that's why she feels that way.

Check out a picture or two at her blog here.

Words I Like

There a bunch of writers (mostly journalists, but a few fiction writers, too) whom I reguarly seek out. One of my recent favorites is Matt Taibbi, sort of new wave gonzo journalist who now writes for Rolling Stone. Check out this article, called "Jesus Made Me Puke," about how goes undercover at a cultish evangelical retreat in Texas. Each participant is required to tell the group about his or her awful childhood, so Taibbi makes up a story about how his father was an abusive circus clown. Genius!

Pennsylvania can go die in a ditch

The bitter, pasty gun-and-religion-clingers of rural Pennsyltucky couldn't be tricked into voting for Barry Hussein Obama last night. That's why we hate them. (Or at least 54.8 percent of their democratic voters.)

We have other reasons for ridiculing South Carolina, however.

Make your pet man again!

I think it's actually biologically impossible not laugh at this product.

Also... the best. endorsement. ever.

"My terrier, Ruckus, is soon to have his 9th birthday, and his Neuticles will have their anniversary shortly thereafter. We've never regretted the small additional expense of Neuticles when his original equipment was removed.

Thanks... nine years later."
Jack Anderson - Los Angeles, CA

Leave the New York Times aloooooooone

OK. I've seriously got to stop picking apart the NY Times before I go completely nuts and start muttering to myself in public about tin foil hats and conspiracies involving the Sulzberger family. Ahem. Then I read this article about googlegangers, the people you see on Google with the same name as you.

Di, my lovely wife, periodically updates me on the life progress of a certain other Di who happens to be some kind of chemistry professor in Germany(!) This sort of serendipitous story could have made for a ton 'o fun if the Times wasn't such a bastion of soul-killing rectitude. Instead of just having fun with the story, they weigh it down with a few tons of quotes from social psychologists and communications theorists about What It All Means.

Also, I'm quite possibly the only person on the planet with my name. Should that make me feel superior on account of specialness or jealous like an only child? I can't decide.

Why more financial aid isn't the answer

We talk about the rising cost of healthcare, but almost as serious an issue as that is the rising cost of college tuition. I believe the average tuition at a 4-year college is now $25,000 per year, which is a huge step up from even 10 years ago when I was in school. (I'm glad I'm not there now!)

Everyone seems to thin the answer to the problem is to increase the size and number of federal student loans. The problem is that such a policy just encourages state university systems to increase spending on "amenities" for students and pushing public universities into competition with private ones.

Just yesterday the NYT ran a ridiculous story about how colleges must now offer students gourmet dining options such as pho, lobster, mineral water and brick-oven pizza if they want to attract students. (The reality, of course, is that they'll still attract good students, but that free market competition between universities is forcing them to add on deluxe features like better food, huge new workout gyms with rock climbing walls and mega basketball arenas.)

Obama was asked about the tuition issue yesterday on the campaign trail:

Obama, a Democrat, said students today put more expectations on nonacademic features such as on-campus health clubs, state-of-the-art cafeterias and dazzling student social centers, features that drive up the cost of higher education.

"I have to tell you, when I went to school, we knew the food was going to be bad," Obama joked with a supportive crowd of about 2,000 people gathered at Great Valley High School. "We knew the gymnasium wasn't going to have all the state-of-the-art nautilus equipment. …

"The point is, you didn't expect first-rate facilities at college because you were there to learn."

He's almost competely right on this issue, but I would say that instead of blaming individual students, the blame lies with federal policy of subsidizing a competitive educational market that encourages universities to spend billions on extraneous facilities and services. And why are we even allowing private university systems to benefit from federal student loans? France, Britain and Canada all do just fine without substantial private systems. I can tell you first-hand that the French university system is much, much, much less plush than our own... but students don't mind because they pay no tuition!

Liberals, can we riot now???

I love this picture!

The annoying headlines of the NYT

Ever check out the homepage of the New York Times and try to figure out what the stories are about? Well, you'd never know by looking at the headlines. You see, NYT readers are sophisticated enough that they don't need to know exactly what the stories are about... the mere impression will suffice.

Check out today's list of "most e-mailed stories":

1. Findings: And Behind Door No. 1, a Fatal Flaw
2. A Disease That Allowed Torrents of Creativity
3. Vanished: A Pueblo Mystery
4. Well: Keeping Priorities Straight, Even at the End
5. In a New Generation of College Students, Many Opt for the Life Examined
6. Asian Inflation Begins to Sting U.S. Shoppers
7. Growing Pains for a Deep-Sea Home Built of Subway Cars
8. Equestrians’ Deaths Spread Unease in Sport
9. There’s Gas in Those Hills
10. Young Obama Backers Twist Parents’ Arms

Of those 10, the only ones that make any friggin sense at all are numbers 6 and 8. I especially love the number 1 headline. What is this about door no. 1? What is "Findings"? And what's this about some kind of underwater subway car house? ARRRRRRGH. JUST TELL ME WHAT THE FUCKING STORY IS ABOUT BEFORE I STAB SOMEBODY IN THE FACE!!!!

Graphic design hell

Ever wonder exactly why foreign soccer logos tend to look so much cooler than American sports team designs? Take for instance, Gretna F.C., a small Scottish soccer club:


This design isn't necessarily "pretty" or cutting edge in any way. But it is just so tough and intimidating and cool looking. I'd be proud to be fan of that team.

Now compare that to the Atlanta Thrashers, an NHL hockey team:

It's cartoonish and corporate! It looks like it was designed without any input from fans and is about as generic a team logo as you could ever come up with. I'm sure there's some graphic designer who puts this on his resume ever day, but I can't help but prefer Gretna's logo, even if it's not cutting edge in any way. I wonder how many other sports fans would agree with me.

Why David Brooks makes me want to puke

I really hate when liberals claim they like David Brooks, on the grounds that he's a "thinking man's conservative." He's truly no different than any of the other reactionaries in the media who relentlessly bash any kind of class-based change in America.

Today's column on the days leading up to the killing of Martin Luther King Jr. is a good example. He constantly equates angry, violent poor people with the angry, violent racists in power as if there is some moral equivalence between battered, dispossessed people standing up for their rights and the reactionary, fascists elements of society that formed a bulwark against change.

Around him in the front were the sanitation workers, with their concrete demands. But in the back of the crowd there were more radical and anarchic elements.

The looting and the rioting began almost immediately. King was whisked away. Hundreds were bloodied. One was killed. The authorities were driven both by the desire to restore order and by their own racist demons.

That march was a pivot. In both the white and black communities, the forces of order and reform vied with the forces of hatred and anarchy. The latter grabbed the upper hand.

Might doesn't make right, but when people have no other recourse, of course they're going to be violent if it means overthrowing an oppressor. To say otherwise is to take the side of the club-wielding fascists who were fighting against those changes. Not everyone was equally wrong!

World's Best Dad

I would like to nominate Keith Macdonald for that honor/honour.